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Professional Genealogy Services for the Midwest, by Harold Henderson, CG (SM).

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Charles Baxter, whose short stories and novels I have yet to read, is quoted in the April 28 New York Review of Booksabout the Midwest -- "the blandness of the landscape and the ways in which people here don't always talk about what's on their minds."

(It took a few days for that to come around and hit me in the back of the head.)

The late Kurt Vonnegut Jr., an Indianapolis native, doesn't seem to have had this problem. He once characterized his home town as "the 500-mile Speedway Race, and then 364 days of miniature golf, and then the 500-mile Speedway Race again." ("Address to Graduating Class at Bennington College, 1970," p. 161 in Wampeters, Foma, and Granfaloons)

3 comments:

{{Charles Baxter, whose short stories and novels I have yet to read, is quoted in the April 28 New York Review of Books about the Midwest -- "the blandness of the landscape and the ways in which people here don't always talk about what's on their minds."}}

You have yet to read his ficsh? Harold, I haven't read it either, but there's no yet about it. Cliches I can stomach, snobbitude I can stomach (actually, it usually makes me retch), but the combo is too much for me, and unless I have reason to think his ficsh is any better than this, I'm going to spend my spare time eating horseradish instead.